Meet the Iran-sponsored writer spinning Canadian conspiracy theories

On Page 3 of today’s National Post, Tristan Hopper reports on the conspiracy theory, being promoted on Iran’s Press TV network, that Canadian “counterterrorism squads” are abducting First Nations children for sale to adoption agencies.

Like just about everything on Press TV, the story is garbage. But the name of the Press TV “Calgary correspondent,” Joshua Blakeney,” jumped out at me.

I’ve met Blakeney. And National Post readers might be surprised to know that his conspiracism is actually funded by the government of Alberta. Or at least it was as recently as two years ago.

As some readers may know, I’ve spent the last few years tracking the 9/11 Truth Movement — these being the conspiracy theorists who believe that the 9/11 terror attacks were staged by American neo-conservatives as a pretext to launch wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Truth movement is primarily an American phenomenon, but there are a few major Canadian “Truthers.” One of them is Anthony Hall, the founding coordinator or the Globalization Studies program at the University of Lethbridge.

As I can report from my personal encounters with Hall at 9/11 Truth events in Montreal and Walkerton, Ont., the man is very passionate about his Trutherdom. But as long as he keeps it out of the classroom, he’s free to believe in whatever conspiracy theories he likes.

Unfortunately, Hall seems to be using his post at Lethbridge as a training ground for 9/11 Trutherdom. His star pupil in this regard is British graduate student Joshua Blakeney, who can be seen in this 2009 video harassing a female CBC reporter with his dark theories about the CBC’s failure to investigate the 9/11 “cover-up.” Blakeney also wrote this charming article expressing delight that author Christopher Hitchens had been sickened with cancer.

On Wednesday afternoon, Hall proudly announced that the University of Lethbridge has awarded Blakeney a $7,714 Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship to pursue his research. (The scholarship is listed as being funded through the “ongoing financial commitment of the Province of Alberta.”) Blakeney’s first $3,857 cheque will be available for pick-up on Dec. 1.

And what will Blakeney be researching? His M.A. research proposal/letter of intent was posted on his website as of Thursday afternoon: “Professor Hall and I have devoted particular attention to debates and controversies concerning the originating events of the GWOT [Global War On Terrorism]. In developing these interests we have been influenced especially by the scholarship of a number of academics including professors David Ray Griffin, John McMurtry, Michel Chossudovsky, Graeme MacQueen. Michael Keefer, Peter Dale Scott, Stephen Jones, Niels Harritt, and Nafeez Ahmed. From a wide array of academic perspectives, each of these specialists has presented evidence to call into question various facets of what Professor MacQueen has recently labelled the “government version” of the events that gave rise to the GWOT. My objective is to evaluate the content, quality and veracity of the body of literature that both supports and criticizes the government version of history used to justify the invasions and domestic transformations that make up the GWOT.”

The names “David Ray Griffin, John McMurtry, Michel Chossudovsky, Graeme MacQueen. Michael Keefer, Peter Dale Scott, Stephen Jones, Niels Harritt, and Nafeez Ahmed” effectively constitute a who’s-who of the most influential Canadian, American and British 9/11 Truth conspiracy theorists. David Ray Griffin, in particular, is the author of The New Pearl Harbor, which more or less became the bible of the Truth movement when it came out in 2004.

In other words, the University of Lethbridge — and, through the province of Alberta’s funding arrangements, the taxpayers of Alberta — are paying a British graduate student $7,714 to pursue his conspiracy theory that the 9/11 attacks were staged by Washington.

Does anyone else see a problem with that?

The plot thickened in September, 2011, when I noticed that Blakeney was writing for an anti-Semitic web site called Veterans Today — which is presumably one of the credentials that makes him highly sought after by Press TV’s producers. Here’s an email I wrote about the incident to the University of Lethbridge:

Hi. I’m an editor at the National Post newspaper. I got the following message from one of your students:

When I click on the link, I get a link to a web site that provides the latest U of L School of Graduate Studies newsletter. And under the “congratulations” section, it reads:

“Josh Blakely was appointed as a staff writer at Veterans Today which is a quite popular media venue based in the US. He has also appeared on several media outlets in the U.S. and Canada discussing his research area. Congratulations Josh!”

I assume this is a misspelled reference to Joshua Blakeney, a graduate student of Anthony Hall in the Dept. of Globalization Studies. Like Prof. Hall, Mr. Blakeney is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who embraces a number of bizarre opinions. Those opinions may or may not concern you. But one thing you should know is that “Veterans Today,” while sounding like a respectable-sounding web site, is in fact infested with anti-semitism. As the Southern Poverty Law Center has determined, the site has become a major center for 9/11 conspiracism — with a strong focus on the sub-niche of 9/11 conspiracy theories that blame Israel (and specifically the Mossad) for the plot to blow up the World Trade Center. The Anti-Defamation League has investigated the anti-Semitism at Veterans Today, and their findings appear here: http://www.adl.org/main_Extremism/911_conspiracy_theories_report.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_3

The site even verges into Holocaust denial. See, for instance, http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/05/11/jb-campbell-behind-the-holocaust/. That article contains lines like this: “The holy gas chamber is a fake. Which makes the entire Holocaust story a fake. You can study it for a day or for a lifetime and your conclusion will be the same. There was never a plan for exterminating Jews and there was never an instrument. As Professor Robert Faurisson has asked for years, ‘Show me a gas chamber. Draw for me a gas chamber.’ It can’t be done because there was never such a thing.” The author also tells us that “the main purpose of keeping alive the Holocaust is to protect Jewish banking practices.”

So there you have it. I thought you would want to know that one of your students is now a staff writer at an anti-Semitic web site; and that you have (inadvertently, no doubt) “congratulated” him for it in your newsletter.

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